FATE Superhero Game

Red Baron, Light-Speed, Mirror Man, Trickshot and Rainbow Runt were on their way back from their successful arcade hall raid with their prisoners, when they were suddenly told over the radio that Scorch wanted to speak with them. So they were directed to land near a building, and go through the nearest door.

A bit nonplussed, they landed near a barn, and pushed the doors open. Inside the doors were not a barn, but the Scorch HQ. They were greeted by The Doorman who told them that they needed to talk to The Archivist and pointed them in the right way.

The Archivist told the group that he had been looking through the papers they had secured, and there were two problems. One he had known without the papers: the special facility in New York had been a trap, and all the heroes that had ventured in there was now trapped in an Illusion Maze ritual. Second problem, that he had uncovered through the papers, was that the facility was also the site of a ritual which would open up a gate to hell, probably swallowing up the entire city. This second ritual seemed to be powered by the Demon Heart that Firestorm had stolen. Scorch already knew that the “Demon Heart” that had been secured during the raid on Firestorm’s lair had actually been an illusion.

The Archivist wanted to place a ritual on Mirror Man that would allow him to see through the Illusion Maze, while simultaneously stabilizing it so that the rest of the group could react more or less reliably to what they were seeing. Then they were to go in and stop the Hell Gate ritual, while saving any heroes they encountered along the way. The group hesitated, but agreed after the Archivist promised to have “the monkeys” fly their ship (and prisoners) back to HQ.

So, the doorman opened another door, and the group found themselves in New York, where they quickly crossed the street to an utterly mundane building that might have been an office, warehouse or factory, but so aggressively non-interesting that they were sure it had to be their goal.

Inside the building was more or less a labyrinth in its own right. The group wandered through an office section of the building, with names on the doors such as “Warmonger, Head of Extortion”. Soon they found some stairs down, and the illusions began. Mirror Man acted as a touch-stone, since he could see through the illusions, but the rest of the group found themselves inside an Egyptian Tomb, and followed the screams until they found Snake being assaulted by a swarm of scorpions, pouring out of a sarcophagus.

Trickshot solved the situation by modifying one of his trick arrows, so that emitted a noise that caused the scorpions to scurry away. Snake was a bit worse for the wear, covered in illusory scorpion stings as he was, but he set out to find the rest of his group, which he had gotten lost from when a mummy had attacked them.

Venturing on, the group found the tomb change to jungle, and heard roars and sounds of fighting ahead. Hurrying forward, they found Darkmancer, Paladin and his Krayeen henchmen fighting a massive gorilla. Mirror Man informed the group that while the gorilla was an illusion, it was also a figment, capable of dealing actual damage. This was punctuated by Paladin being flung across the jungle clearing.

The group went into action, and with judicious use of various trapping techniques, such as Light-Speeds light wall, Mirror Man conjuring an illusory cage, and Trickshot using his foam arrows to good effect, the gorilla was brought down, mostly by the attack of Red Baron.

After the fight, the situation was explained to Darkmancer and Paladin, and Darkmancer immediately took charge, leading the group onward.

The jungle turned to space ship corridors, and some stereotypical grey aliens were killed, though it wasn’t much of a fight after the gorilla. Then the space ship turned into underground caves, and finally into a large underground room with a catwalk around the wall.

In the exact center of the room was suspended the Demon Heart, with cables leading to the corners. Below it was a sizable portal, and the floor of the hall was filled with demons of various kinds.

Darkmancer immediately started barking out orders. Light-Speed was handed a bunch of acid arrows, and within a split-second used them on the cables on the opposite side of the hall. Once the acid had eaten through the cables, the demon heart would swing towards the catwalk that the group was standing on. Trickshot hooked the heart so he would be able to pull it up once the cables were cut. Paladin, Darkmancer, Mirror Man and Rainbow Runt prepared to defend against the demons that were already swarming up the walls, or taking to the air. And Red Baron ignored all orders and just jumped straight into the swarm.

At first things were going okay. Mirror Man started taking out the flying demons with a variety of illusions, Red Baron ripped through the demons on the ground, and the rest fired into the horde, paying special attention to the ones crawling up the walls. Mirror Man dissuaded a seriously large demon from making its way through the portal. The cables that held up the Demon Heart were almost eaten through, when the horde surged forward, overcoming Red Baron’s defenses, and started ripping him to pieces. Quite literally. In the end, one demon rose with the glowing soul of Red Baron in hand, and began to make its way back to the portal.

The demon was immediately shot dead, Rainbow Runt tried to grab the soul, but found his hand passing straight through it. To buy time, Light-Speed ran down, and erected a lightwall around the soul, while the others attacked the demons around him, to try to keep them from ripping him to shreds as well.

And then the cables broke, and the demon heart began to swing towards their side of the room. And the portal followed. Right towards the spot where Red Baron’s soul and Light-Speed were, beneath the catwalk. Light-Speed quickly tried something new, attempting to form a light-bowl of sorts by moving his hands at the same speeds he normally moved. It worked, and he scoped up the soul and skedaddled just as the portal swept over the spot that he had been moments before,

Light-Speed evacuated the battlefield to watch over the soul, while Trickshot hauled up the Demon Heart. As soon as the Heart was over the railing, Darkmancer enveloped it in a magic sphere, and began trying to disrupt the portal ritual.

While he did this, the remaining heroes were busy trying to keep away the demons. Things quickly got much more hairy. Though catwalks and demons alike were blasted away, the horde kept inching closer and closer to the heroes position, as Darkmancer worked and the portal flickered. In the final seconds of the fight, the demons came in close, on one flank seriously pummeling Mirror Man who had to flee to the air, and on the other engaging Trickshot in melee, until he manually triggered a foam arrow in a spray to tie up all the demons closest to him. Meanwhile Rainbow Runt and the Krayeen blasted for all they were worth, and Paladin slew demons left and right to keep them off Darkmancer.

And then, the portal closed. Without the portal sustaining them, the demons all turned to sand, and in a massive whirlpool returned from whence they came. In the same stroke, the Illusion Maze ritual was ended.

Darkmancer judged the rest of the teams efforts as “adequate”, teleported the Demon Heart away, and dismissed the rest of the group. He had to secure the other arcana in the basement, and didn’t need them around any more.

So the rest of the group ventured upstairs to help, since they needed to bum a ride home, what with their own air skiff being crewed by a bunch of monkeys (presumably) in another state. Mop-up duty progressed without any problems.

For the organization as a whole, the mission was slightly underwhelming. Though Madam Yings overt gambling dens had been taken out, it appeared that none of her secure facilities had been found, what with the New York base being a trap and all. And the American government was not pleased that Bulwark had taken it upon themselves to stage the raid, without telling anyone. This combined with the Anonymous attack and the anti-meta legislation up for vote again within a couple of days did not bode well for Bulwark.

Bulwark had however received an offer to relocate to the Pacific island of Monguam, home to some 200 natives who had all turned meta in a single undisclosed event (apparently involving a sea goddess). They invited Bulwark to relocate their HQ there.

Given the situation Bulwark took the invitation, and moved overnight stripping their HQ of everything of worth. Some of the new heroes, unwilling to relocate to the middle of the Pacific, returned to civilian life in and around Boston.

Once located on Monguam, Bulwark started seizing on the other opportunities around the world. Many nations had requested either help with training their own super hero teams, or having a Bulwark team permanently stationed.

In the end, permanent teams were established in Brazil, Kenya, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Japan, Canada, Costa Rica, England and Germany.

In addition consulting the heroes not on teams were spending most of their time on consulting jobs. Bulwark were hesitant to help Israel, as it seemed the Israelies were disinterested in the ethics code that Bulwark were trying to spread. On the other hand, they jumped at the change to train an Iranian team. Whether the fact that Arabia had declared metas to be devil-spawn had any influence there is unknown.

A meta-human group calling itself Anonymous, struck a blow for meta-kind when they seized the Senate building and Airforce One, and hacked the Pentagon, when the Senate was voting on a bill on strict new laws against super criminals (as in, any person with super powers committing any crime). The federal government kept Bulwark out of Washington, and Major General Savage sent soldiers in to handle the situation. Bulwark sent a team of flying heroes towards the Air Force One, to see if they could at least help there.

In the end, no help was needed. The Anonymous members were all captured, killed or fled, with only some injuries to the members of the Senate. Air Force One was retaken by Secret Service agents, and the hackers were locked out of Pentagon.

Following these events, Bulwark was contacted by one of their criminal contacts, who desired to remain anonymous. He had heard that the events were orchestrated by Madam Ying of the Seven Sins. He did not appreciate what this would probably do to meta-human relations. So he ratted out all of Madam Ying’s hideouts that he knew about.

Bulwark acted quickly, and in secret, sending out teams to attack all the hideouts. The most senior members would attack a special facility in New York. One of the smaller teams, Red Baron, Light-Speed, Mirror Man, Trickshot and Rainbow Runt would take out a gambling hall hidden in an arcade hall in a shopping area.

The team busted in, and took out several hoodlums with super powers. However, the entire way they were plagued by a variety of illusions. In the end, however, the illusionist was taken out and the area secured.

Then White Blade, a senior member of Bulwark, teleported in, and told the group that he needed some papers that he believed would be hidden here, to penetrate the defenses in the New York facility. He almost got them too, but Light-Speed realized that something was wrong, and confirmed that White Blade was still in New York. The impostor was thwarted from obtaining the papers, but managed to teleport back out.

The papers were instead handed over to Scorch, since they looked to obtain some kind of magical rituals.

Light-Speed ran ahead to check things out, and while he was at it, he tormented the get-away driver, until the man simply gave up and stopped moving.

The rest of the team arrived at about the same time as the cops, and got the go-ahead to go inside.

There they found Mastermind, and half a dozen thugs holding the bank personnel and customers hostage. Mastermind immediately began messing with peoples minds. In the ensuing mayhem, Trickshot tried to rescue the hostages, only to discover that Deadshot had set up on a building across the street (he discovered this when Deadshot almost shot him). Trickshot took out Deadshot with a flashbang arrow, while the rest of the team took out the thugs and caused Mastermind to flee to the back of the bank.

There one of the team removed his helmet, resulting in a psychic area attack which knocked several people unconscious (hostages, police officers, thugs), and gave the rest wicked headaches. Mastermind was knocked unconscious, and the helmet put back on.

Then there was a tremendous explosion from the downstairs vault. The group ventured down there, finding Ilianna, Kroscheck and Robert in a crater, the vault door smashed open, and Ilianna unconscious. Kroscheck went into a rage, but was contained by Light-Speed while Trickshot and Robert had a talk, where it was revealed that they were refugees from some kind of Russian meta-human prison camp.

Mastermind and the Russians were bundled into the groups transport, and returned to HQ, where the leadership decided to protect the trio, and not mention anything about it to the US government.

The leadership also set out the immediate concerns of Bulwark for the near future:

Set up a consulting business, to bring in some resources for Bulwark.

Acquire some extra-national territory, perhaps in the form of a Pacific Island, to set up the Bulwark HQ and provide a sanctuary for persecuted metas.

Form a new superhero organization under the UN, which should not be connected Bulwark. An organization created by the Terrans, so they would feel safe from Bulwark meddling.

Create lines of contact to the super villain organizations, so that a defense could be mustered if the Quantum Cartel were to return.

Light Speed, Mirror Man, Rainbow Runt and Red Baron were the team on duty in Houston when the message came down the wire that an oil rig in the Gulf had radioed in that they were under attack by robots, and then gone of the air.

The team traveled out to the oil rig, and found that it was indeed overrun by robots, which seemed to be keeping the rig running. There was no sign of the human crew. Just the robots and in the computer system a data connection leading back to the mainland, through which someone was keeping the digital side of things running.

The group cleared out the robots, and during the course of this discovered that their cranial housing contained actual human brains. They were brainbots.

Investigation by an off-team super hacker, revealed that the data connection had led to a pair of coordinates outside a small fishing village. Light-Speed ran ahead, scouted out the fishing village, got a fish burger at the local dinner, and generally just got bored. When he scouted out the nearby cliffs, he did spot some underwater caves, close to the coordinates that they had been given by the hacker.

Once the rest of the team arrived, they ventured into the cave, and came upon a hidden harbor, in which were several submarines, and the entrance to an underground base.

In the underground base, they found more brainbots, and the workshops for creating them, as well as Bulldozer and Racer. The pair tried to stop them from advancing any further, with the help of a small army of brainbots, but the heroes came through in the end and advanced further into the base.

Here they came upon The Robotocist, who was talking with a shadowy figure, and promising him that he would soon have things under control. When the team entered, the shadowy figure disappeared, and the Robotocist threatened them a bit, then disappeared through a hatch in the floor.

Below the floor was his megabot, a fifty foot tall robot that he could control from inside a control room in its head. He took the robot to the surface, inside the fishing village, upon which time Rainbow Runt blinded it. As the now blinded robot blundered around, destroying buildings, it turned out that approximately half the population of the village were actually brainbots in disguise, and they began firing upon the heroes. A battle progressed, where the heroes attempted to protect civilians while taking down the giant robot. In the end, Red Baron made his way inside, and drained the Robotocist of blood until he stopped moving. Mission success.

Bulwark has made Firestorm’s lair into their new HQ, leaving only the duty staff in their old accomodations inside the city of Baltimore. The military has also come to Baltimore, putting up a cordon around the Cartel cruisers, while they try to figure out how to salvage them.

The duty team, consisting of Paladin, Rose Knight, Light-Speed, and William got a report that something was going down at the Abeerdeen Proving Ground north of Baltimore. They were prohibited by entering the Proving Grounds themself, since that was military territory, and the military was denying access to all metas, but they were to head north in case they were asked for help.

On the way north, however, it became clear that Major General Savage wasn’t going to invite them inside.

Light-Speed had run ahead, and could see a fight going on inside the base, between the soldiers and some people in jet packs.

Once the rest of the group reached the southern end of the Proving Grounds, William decided to make his way into the Proving Grounds on foot, despite knowing that the area had been used to test biological and chemical weapons.

The rest of the group headed east around the Proving Grounds over open water, following the directions of Light-Speed who had seen a hostile break off from the fight with the soldiers carrying something big. The rest of the hostiles started flying north.

The group concentrated on the lone figure, and took him down. His cargo turned out to be some experimental chemicals, which were handed back to the military. Savage begrudgingly thanked the group for their assistance.

After the Battle of Baltimore, the Union heroes quickly found that they were in another universe, and that they couldn’t find a way back, magically or otherwise. So it was decided to set up Bulwark as an organization in the Terra universe. Anthony Rutherford, the governor of Baltimore, was agreeable in this regard, and Bulwark began to recruit heroes from the new metas of Baltimore and beyond.

It was also decided that the crashed Cartel cruisers would be handed over to the US government, to facilitate cooperation with this universe’s governments. And this point, the Union heroes did not quite yet understand the geopolitics of this world, themselves coming from a world under a one-world government.

A couple of days later, before the US military has moved in to secure the craft, Rose Knight, Paladin and Shadow is on a mission to remove magical artifacts from the cruisers, before the hand-over. Scorch doesn’t trust these artifacts to other organizations, and has failed to inform Bulwark of their little operation. Trickshot, who is still independent, notices the incursion into the ships, and follows based on curiosity.

Inside the ship, the Scorch team goes about removing the artifacts. During their search, they uncover a recording by a Dhalo scientist. Behind the scientist are rows upon rows of suspended animation tanks, filled with superheroes. The scientist explains something to the camera, “The treatment is going exactly as expected. The transfer fluid interacts nicely with the subjects’ internal quantum-energy structure. Also as expected, the transfer fluid does not give nearly the same level of response from subjects that received their quantum-energy from other sources than The Event. Even after two weeks the response is extremely limited, and it is not expected that they can be completely drained by the treatment. I suggest..” and then the recording cuts off. The Scorch team decides that this recording needs to be handed over the Bulwark, once their mission is over.

The Scorch Team reached the center of the ship, where they encountered Firestorm, who was preparing to remove the ship’s Demon Heart. A fight was almost about to break out, when four Krayeen warriors suddenly also enter the scene, and a three-way struggle begins, with the Scorch team and Firestorm fighting over possession of the Demon Heart, while the Krayeen just shoot at everybody. Mostly at Paladin, though, when he moves in to disable them. Trickshot lends aid to the Scorch team from the shadows, pining down the Krayeen, while Paladin takes care of them.

In the end, the Krayeen is defeated, Firestorm escapes, and Trickshot slinks off before anyone can talk to him.

Paladin got a look into Firestorm’s mind, however, and not only does he know where his hideout is, he also knows how Firestorm managed to sneak past the Bulwark sentries. There is a mole inside Bulwark; Jumper.

Jumper is apprehended, and a large force of heroes travel to Firestorm’s base. Three separate teams of heroes are going to go in, while the rest guard the exits, to make sure that nobody escapes.

During the infiltration the third team managed to set off the alarm, and the entire complex was filled with fire. Luckily Time Lord slowed time enough for the first team to get out before they were affected, and Paladin was trapped in a pit trap in another part of the complex. Mecha Warrior and Plasmashot did get pretty badly burned before they were retrieved, however.

Part of the group went in to find out where Paladin had disappeared off to, found him, and also ran into an invisible, illusion-slinging villain, that was trying to get away with the Demon Heart. The Demon Heart was saved, but the villain got away.

Then they went in after Firestorm wearing the same fireproof suits that he was equipping his minions with. Given that protection, Firestorm couldn’t even touch them, and they easily defeated him and his remaining minions.

Terra Universe

It started a week ago. The miracle day. The fire fighter from New York who walked through flames without being hurt. The Spanish ambulance driver who could heal by laying on hands. The Indian school teacher that could summon light, when his school was buried in a landslide.

On the second and third day, it turned out that the miracle heroes weren’t the only thing that had changed in the world. Eight tourists captured pictures of a swamp thing in the swamps of Louisiana. A wolf the size of a small car killed three people in France. Strange lights were seen in the depths of the coast of Japan.

On the fourth day, the first super villain appeared. He robbed a bank in China, and the bullets of the police didn’t hurt him as he peeled open the bank vault with his bare hands.

On the fifth day, the floodgates opened. Super villains seemed to appear all over. And so did super heroes, attempting to stop the bad guys.

This continued into the sixth day. As collateral damage continued to rise, the world reacted. Russia and China went into partial martial law. Politicians held meetings. Lynch mobs killed people suspected of being metas, especially in the third world.

Union Universe

In the union universe, metas have been around for a recently long time. The prime concern of the people here, is the Quantum Cartel, an evil alien empire that took over the Earth, until Earth was liberated some 1945, and then again tried to take over in 1981.

Now, in the year 2015, rumors go in the galactic community that the Quantum Cartel are being destroyed, their planets seized one by one by an unknown force. The population of Earth cheers.

However, two months after these rumors first appear, a massive Cartel fleet returns to Earth, swatting aside all defenses. An enormous mothership lands in the wastelands of Asia, and throws up an impenetrable force shield, The Black Dome, which shrugs off nuclear weapons and magical attacks alike.

From behind this shield, the Cartel sends out raiding parties, attacking cities until superheroes appear, and then capturing or killing them, taking the bodies back to the mothership.

This goes on for a while, but in the background, and alliance is formed between Union, the forces of good, and the various super villain organizations. Nobody are interested in the Cartel on Earth.

A plan with multiple fail-safes is concocted to bring down the shield, at which point all the remaining metas that can be scratched together will attack the mothership. The first stage works, the shield go down, and an army of super heroes and villains charge the mothership, while Cartel jetpack troopers and cruisers swoop down from above to protect the ship.

However, the fight is yet unresolved, when a message comes in that three nukes have been fired against the mothership. The attack stalls as some people fight on, while others try to get away. Then there is a light like that of a thousand suns from above the mothership.

Terra Universe

Suddenly a large number of super heroes, super villains and Cartel aliens find themselves in and above the city of Baltimore, as well as some 30 Cartel cruisers. The fight quickly takes on another character, as the super heroes need to protect civilians while fighting the Cartel aliens, and many of the super villains take off. In exchange, some of the newly empowered metas of Terra join in the fight.

Armsman spends most of the time directing the fight and trying to protect civilians.

Time Lord and William take to the skies, each in their own way, and start disabling the Cartel cruisers one by one.

Rose Knight finds himself busy, when the demon Halphas catches up with him, and seems to indicate that Rose Knight stole his name. Rose Knight doesn’t even remember the demon. Armsman catches up with this fight, and spends most of it fighting Halphas’s minions; humans armed with military-grade armor and weapons.

Once the heroes has taken out a bunch of the Cartel cruisers, the rest decide to leave, and a bunch escaped into space. Halphas also escaped, once more heroes were brought in to take him down.